Buddha: The Dhammapada

Buddha: The Dhammapada

Gautama Buddha was the founder of what we know as Buddhism, a spiritual tradition that is recognized throughout the world as one of compassion, peace, and understanding. Like his final words: "Be a light unto yourself", Gautama Buddha’s teachings were often simple phrases that carried profound thoughts and implications. When the words of the Buddha were gathered together, a special collection was made The Dhammapada or The Way of Truth.

Selected quotes from the Buddha

Introduction to The Dhammapada

This is again such a blessed moment in time for me, where lives are coming together and the whole guidance of this wonderful existence becomes even clearer. In this introduction I want to show you how precisely we are guided life after life and how magnificent all is connected with The Dhammapada as the connecting thread.

Past lives connecting and culminating in this life.

I had just finished the mantra-music part of this website and wanted to take a break. After waking up, meditating and having my first cup of tea I mostly get a clear guidance about what to do that day. I write it down and when I feel the time is there, I will start.

But no break. My inner voice or Buddha or Osho or the Source (all the same) told me clearly to start writing about Buddha’s Dhammapada. Meditating on this I saw suddenly how past lives were connecting and somehow were culminating in this life.

People often say I don’t believe in reincarnation or past lives, but belief is for the blind and it is dangerous. Those who can see just know with certainty. Even if you look from a scientific viewpoint, so many things in my life can only be explained by the way past lives work out in this life and I see it the same with my ‘anam caras' (soul friends) I could write a book about this, but the subject is Buddha and the Dhammapada.

I know now from so many evidences that I have been with the Buddha in one of my past lives, but when I went to Osho in January 1979 I knew some past lives, but not that one.

Be a light unto yourself

One of the greatest contributions of Buddha to this world has been His saying: “Be a light unto yourself. Don’t be a believer, don’t believe what I am saying. Discover it for yourself!” And when my spiritual Master Osho gave the name Deva Deep to me, which means Divine Light, Lamp, he said exactly the same: “Remember the saying of Buddha: Be a light unto yourself”  This has always been a guiding light in my life. Going with the masses is easy. Finding your own unique individual way is much more difficult and takes a lot of courage, but is very rewarding.  Buddha also said:” They shall reach the topmost height”.

This is also a main topic in Chapter 1 of the Dhammapada the twin verses. Buddha show us that there are two different paths to choose the easy road, which the crowds take or the 'road less traveled by'. Robert Frost's famous lines from "The Road Not Taken" provide a model for the crossroads at which every human being stands:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

Why can't a person just pass by the easy road and take "the one less traveled by" if it leads to permanent happiness? The obstacle is the mind. It is one's mental state-that determines which of these possibilities a person will act on. The mind can be said to be a product of the human being's evolutionary drive to look out for himself first. Its natural response to any situation is to take the easiest, least unpleasant course to personal fulfillment. The Buddha calls this swimming with the current, taking the easy path traveled by the many. To find happiness, one has to go against the current, against every selfish impulse.

The cosmic joke in this cosmic play is that everything in life contains a paradox. So what looks as the easy path is full of disappointment, frustration, depression, burnout etc, while 'the road less traveled by' gives such a joy and fulfillment.

 

The endless journey of the soul

These were the last words of the Buddha and the first words of Osho and ShantiMayi to me. In this way re-connecting me with the Buddha energy again.

Osho says later in the Dhammapada: "No true master ever dies, he cannot die. Death does not appear for the masters, does not exist for them. Hence they are masters. They have known the eternity of life. Whenever you can love a master, a master like Buddha, immediately you are bridged".

And of course that is happening all the time. The most wonderful experience I had when Osho was very ill in Poona and He didn't came out for a long time. For me this didn't make any difference, on the contrary I felt his presence so strongly  all the time and as I feel it now also. From that moment I knew He will always be with me.

Yes the presence of the masters you really connected with, will always be with you on the endless journey of your soul. They will keep guiding you, as I experience so strongly. The same with your anam caras, you will meet them again and again on your soul's journey.

Discovering the Dhammapada again

When I was in Poona (1979/80) Osho started speaking almost the whole period  about the Dhammapada of Buddha. What an infinite blessings these two great Masters joining their energy together.

In Osho case it happened several years later literally and Osho spoke in his discourses about that.

In the night Buddha and Osho merged their energies an incredible bright beam of light came into my room, coming from no visible source. The next morning Osho told what has happened during this merging and said that two of his sannyasins (disciples) had the same experience.

Also ShantiMayi spoke in the time I was with here in India a lot about Buddha’s Lankavatara Sutra, the Heart Sutra and the Medicine Buddha.

Living the essence

Not I make a leap in time to 2001. After being with Osho and ShantiMayi in India, I had the feeling that the way religion in India was lived, consisted most of the time of empty rituals which didn’t anything to change the consciousness of the people. I experienced almost everything around me as unconsciousness acts of people. To give an example, you have a very holy Guru (Saint), and you go to her and do pranam for her (bow and touch her feet)  and ask for her blessings. Then you go outside, take the garbage bin full of shit and dirt and throw everything over the head of the holy saint. Looks absolutely crazy but that is exactly what the Indians are doing with their holy Mother Mata Ganga, the holy river Ganges.

Walking from Neelkant, a very holy Shiva pilgrim temple to Rishikesh, also a very holy place, you will walk through a forest literally covered with plastic bags and rubbish of hundred of thousands pilgrims. And every tree has a sign: buy this, drink this and so on.

So I decided that there must be another way of living the Essence and went to Thailand, first going to Ayuthaya, Sukhothai and Pitsanulok. It was coming from the Hindu hell in the Buddhist heaven.

Beautiful Buddha statues in magnificent temples in an absolute clean environment with beautiful gardens and ponds with Lotus flowers. Amazing. No loads of mutilated beggars, no garbage everywhere, no shouting people and no taxi/rickshaw drivers who wanted to cheat you as much as possible. So this really felt like coming home in such a beautiful harmonious and peaceful environment.

The Radiance of a Buddha statue

Osho said this about the Radiance of a Buddha statue:

Just looking at the statue of Buddha you will feel some serenity within you - the proportion of the Buddha, the body, the posture, the way he is sitting, the half-closed eyes. You just sit silently, look at the statue, and you will start falling into a silence....

It is certainly an experience to sit silently in a Buddhist temple watching a statue of Buddha, just looking at it. And you will be surprised that you start feeling certain qualities - tremendous silence, a great beauty. The centering of the statue somehow creates a synchronicity: you start feeling centered, calm and quiet....

In the East a statue is not made for its own sake: it is made as a code language for the centuries that follow. Scriptures may disappear, languages may change and words may be interpreted. Doctrines can be wrongly interpreted, commented upon. There may be dispute about theories - and there have been - so they thought there must be a different way than language....

Objective art means it has been created deliberately by one who knows what he is doing, who brings something from the other dimension into this world, some form. Just watching that form, a form will arise in you, a song. Just singing that song, you will become something else, a mantra....

(Note the radiance coming out of the cedi, with relics of Buddha, is just as I took the photo.

I experienced these cedis as huge energy transmitters).

As usual Osho describes in his eloquent way what I experienced in so many Buddhist temples.

The same strong experience I had also in Myanmar, a mysterious and beautiful country with such an amazing friendly people. It shows again the power of Buddhism that even people can be so heart touching in difficult living conditions.

The Source told me also that I had to take pictures of 10.000 Buddha status and publish these on my website and that then my last karma would be dissolved. So I did. And yes, I feel very blessed in every way.

The Dhammapada revealed again

I went several times back to Thailand, also in the end of 2006 and at a certain moment I was in Pai in North Thailand, a very touristic place. I didn’t like it very much and asked myself why I was there? After that I was drawn to a little shop and found the book: THE DHAMMAPADA by Eknath Easwaran. I was so touched by the profound truths in this book and the way Easwaran introduced every chapter. I knew that has been the reason to come to this place. For me the holyday could be over there, but savoring this book I continued and more profound experiences came later also.

I give you a taste of a part of the introduction of this book, which I can highly recommend it to you. You can read it also via Google Books 

"Our life is shaped by our mind, for we become what we think." That is the essence of the Buddha's universe and the whole theme of the Dhammapada. If we can get hold of the thinking process, we can actually redo our personality, remake ourselves. Destructive ways of thinking can be rechanneled, constructive channels can be deepened, all through right effort and meditation. "As irrigators lead water to their fields, as archers make their arrows straight, as carpenters carve wood, the wise shape their lives." "The universe is hostile," Wernher von Braun once said, "only when you do not know its laws. To those who know and obey, the universe is friendly." When understood, the Buddha's universe too is anything but alien and inhibiting. It is a world full of hope, where everything we need to do can be done and everything that matters is within human reach. It is a world where kindness, unselfishness, nonviolence, and compassion achieve what self-interest and arrogance cannot. It is, simply, a world where any human being can be happy in goodness and the fullness of giving. We have the path to this world in the Dhammapada.

The opening sentence has of course great implications:

 

"Our life is shaped by our mind, for we become what we think."

As I have seen so often, when I tune in at a certain frequency, the process will continue. So I found later a copy of a magazine called Happinez with a review of the movie (just coming out then) the Secret, based on the same principle. But too much focused on the material plane and what can I get (and of course then it doesn’t work mostly).  For commercial reasons Esther Hicks (I experience Abraham-Esther Hicks as the source of the law of attraction) was removed in the second edition of the Secret (I have them both). The only real truth in this movie is stated by another woman who emphasis the importance of love and gratitude. And this combination is indeed a strong positive manifesting force as also the experiments of Emoto with water  and my own experience show.

At this moment I feel so much love and gratitude for Buddha, Rumi, Osho, ShantiMayi and others from whom I have received so much, that I HAVE to share it.

Back home I got this movie and later on also movies and books of Abraham-Esther Hicks who expanded this same principle (the law of attraction) to a higher plane, ending in for me the highest peak the law of God action, which I see all the time in action in my life.

"Joy follows a pure thought like a shadow that never leaves".

Abraham-Esther Hicks simple state the law of attraction as you will attract everything, corresponding with your vibrational level. So the only way to attract more of what you want is to change your vibrational level. To give one example how do this: a week ago I had one of the most difficult depressing transits possible. I have made many horoscopes and I have seen a lot of people becoming depressed under this transit. When I felt the energy coming, I said: "Oh no, I will not give any attention to you, you shut up". As Osho explains clearly later you can't fight against darkness you only have to bring light in. So I focused my whole energy on what can I give to this world and the mantra-music part of this website started unfolding. I posted it at the maximum of this difficult transit and of course the whole of existence reacts on what you sent out, amplifies it and sent it back to you. So there I was sitting in bliss, love, gratitude, peace and so on. These are just ways of indicating somehow this blessed state, but of course this state is beyond this all. This is what the second verse of the Dhammapada states so clearly:

2 Our life is shaped by our mind; we become what we think. Joy follows a pure thought like a shadow that never leaves.

This is a long introduction (and I have it kept really short!) but I wanted to show you how wonderfully we are guided life after life and how magnificent all is connected.

As Abraham expresses it so beautifully: The Universe adores you; for it knows your broadest intentions. You have come to earth with great intentions, and the Universe constantly guides you on your chosen path.

And also the wonderful book I found in Egypt: The Zohar, states the same:

Humanity was endowed by the Creator with the power to influence and determine the very nature of the universe, from the quantum level to the birth and death of stars. The instrument of this great power is nothing more than our consciousness, and our realization of the capabilities that are within our grasp.

Kabbalah teaches that our thoughts, feelings, and especially our spiritual awareness determine events in the external environment. What takes place in our minds and hearts is the ground state of the physical realm. This view, it is interesting to note, is also expressed in the so-called Copenhagen interpretation theory of quantum mechanics, as articulated by Niels Bohr.

LISTEN TO YOUR INNER VOICE AND GO FOR IT! Be a light unto yourself!

For thousands of years the great beings have transmitted the same message and show us our unlimited potential. It is only for us to accept this great gift and start using it.

But again and again certain things are ONLY possible in a certain time-window (in astrology we call that transits) so LISTEN TO YOUR INNER VOICE AND GO FOR IT! In most cases it is really: now or never (in this life)!

 I am almost in the middle of my marvelous Uranus conjunct Jupiter transit. This transit means in a new, creative and original way, with the aid of digital technology, helping by expanding of the consciousness of humanity. And that is exactly what I am doing now by making and expanding this website and several other projects I am working on. (This is a long lasting transit of about one year. Introduced in Egypt by a shorter but equally beautiful Jupiter trine Uranus transit).

Do you think for a moment that I knew that this whole website would evolve in this way when Osho asked me in the Sinai in Egypt to start this publishing process? Of course not, but I followed this inner voice and see what has came out of it. And it is expanding all the time. And this is only one of the projects I am working on.

The alpha and the omega

I asked the Osho Zen Tarot for a card for phase two of this project, which ends here.  

I got the card IX Aloneness.

This card is a beautiful synthesis between the title of this website:

An All-One Planet Guide  for the Inner World and the main theme: Be a light unto yourself.

Another example how everything fits seemingly together: the alpha and the omega.

Description: The humble figure in this card glows with a light that emanates from within. One of Gautam Buddha's most significant contributions to the spiritual life of humankind was to insist to his disciples, "Be a light unto yourself ." Ultimately, each of us must develop within ourselves the capacity to make our way through the darkness without any companions, maps or guide.

Divine vision

Every time I think this revealing process is finished, a new insight comes. In 1974 I did a psycho synthesis group with a wonderful woman Grace Stern. In one of the exercises we did I made a spiritual journey trough the whole inner landscape. I ended standing on the top of a huge mountain with a kind of bright Divine Light in my hand. This light spread over the whole earth and changed the consciousness of the planet. I felt the importance of this divine vision and made a movie, inspired by this vision, called: Pheadra and it really worked on the people who saw it.

When Osho told me in 1979 about the meaning of my name Deva Deep, Divine Light I immediately saw this vision again. Now many years later it looks like this vision is actualizing, if you see this map.

This enhances again the importance that if you are blessed with having this kind of divine vision to take it as a guiding light and step by step you will be guided to your ultimate flowering.

Happinez

It looks that this blessed existence always wants to confirm everything. Seven days after writing this I went to Ingrid-Imana, who had cooked a fine ayurvedic dinner for me. She had the latest Happinez and the main theme was inspiration, about which I also had written a lot these days. And also (not difficult to guess) a beautiful article about Buddha with prominent: "Be a Light Unto Yourself".

May this article inspire you.

Blessings to you.

Deva Deep